


The Planeshift Summer: A Primer

by Scribe



Category: Planeshift (TV), Planeshift Fictional TV Series Campaign
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bands, Multi, POV Original Character, POV Outsider, Planeshift Fanworks Exchange, Primer, Remix, so many levels, they're all a giant and dysfunctional family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 13:17:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5050063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scribe/pseuds/Scribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What you have to understand is that the Heroes label we know and love didn't exist in 2012.</p><p>[a remix of rageprufrock's And The Living Is Easy]</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Planeshift Summer: A Primer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [feedingonwind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feedingonwind/gifts).



> This might make sense without reading rageprufrock's wonderful AU And The Living Is Easy first, but it will be significantly better with context, and anyway, it's a fantastic fic and you won't regret it.
> 
> A lot of people have made awesome filk for ATLIE, but that is way outside my skillset, so I started thinking about other kinds of transformative work. I remember how much I used to love the remix challenge back in my lotrips days, so I decided to rewrite the fic as it would have been seen through the eyes of a fan on the summer tour. Then I started talking to fiercynn about what Planeshift bandom would be like, and thus this primer was born. 
> 
> Apologies for the shitty photoshop. I took the liberty of naming a few things that weren't named in the fic, but otherwise credit for all the ideas goes to Pru.

So recently I was talking to a friend who's only been in Heroes fandom for a year or so about the Planeshift Summer. They're working on a fic that is largely set during the Summer and they were asking me for clarification, as it can be hard to tell what's fanon and what actually happened. I went looking for sources but although I found some scattered accounts of specific events, it looked like nobody had ever actually sat down and written out an explanation of the whole summer. I started putting a sort of primer together in an email, but it just kept getting longer, and I know there are other Heroes fans out there who weren't around for the Summer, so I figured I'd polish it up a little and put it up here for everyone. Here goes!

 

 

THE PLANESHIFT SUMMER: a primer

 

What you have to understand is that the Heroes label we know and love didn't exist in 2012. The Planeshift Summer was the start of it, and the Planeshift Summer was...weird. It was masterminded by producer/manager/general magic worker Terra W. as a kind of combination of a concert tour, festival circuit, and extended audition/workshopping process- as far as we can tell. There's never been any confirmation on the matter, but from the outside it looks like Terra W. took a bunch of performers she was interested in and spent the summer messing around with them (adding, cutting, switching performers into different groups, changing repertoires and venues and who was opening for and playing with whom) until she'd shaped exactly the lineup she wanted for the label, which swiftly went on to become the fabulously co-dependent and wonderfully successful family we all know and love.

Lesson 1 of Heroes fandom: Terra W. is a terrifying, all-seeing god.

So anyway, at the start of the summer in 2012 pretty much everything was different. There were a bunch of other bands and musicians on the tour who didn't ever make it onto the label, but I'll stick to the ones you know.

 

**Where They Were Then:**

 

 

  **1\. Empire**

Empire was the only moderately successful name on the label at that point, and they headlined most of the Planeshift summer, especially the events that were proper concert venues. In 2012 they were made up of four people: Tsadok (lead vocals, guitar), Emron (guitar), Jeris (bass), and Lyon (drums).

 

[](http://imgbox.com/ojh1YdQ7)

 

 

Jeris and Emron, aka the most adorable open secret couple in the business, started out (fucking amazingly) as a Canadian folk duo called True North, with Emron on accoustic guitar and Jeris on fiddle.

 

[](http://imgbox.com/WnsRrC3R)

 

[](http://imgbox.com/LaRcwAz8)

 

See? Fucking adorable.

It's hard to find their old stuff, but you can witness Jeris' talent when even now he'll occasionally hand off his bass to Emron and pick up an electric violin for a song or two.

Tsadok was basically born to be a frontman, and he and long-time friend Lyon were founding members of a number of terrible bands starting as early as middle school, with such excellent names as ORC, DisChord, and Tsadok and the Gang. Most of them are lost to time, and for good reason, judging by [this one clip](youtube.com) of DisChord that's viewable on YouTube, if you want to check out how pretty teenage Tsadok was (very) or how terrible his early music was (...also very).

Also worth noting, in 2012 Empire had just released their first album with one of the now-infamous Shadow Tracks, bonus instrumental tracks on several of their CDs featuring an obscenely talented unknown solo guitarist. The official line is that the tracks are created by a friend of the band who isn't interested in the spotlight, and speculation abounds as to who it could be. Whoever it is, they're damn impressive.

 

  **2\. Aja**

Aja was performing solo at the time, and was maybe the second-most well-known of the bunch, as she'd regularly opened for Terra W.'s star Faedrin before his tragic death in a bus accident involving several other musicians in 2010. Aja did have some earlier catalog, but nobody really knew it well, and anyway we'll get to that later.

 

**3\. Dyr & Skjaldi**

The duo of Dyr and Skjaldi had been performing together for a few years by the time Terra W. picked them up. Their first album, No Going Back, is actually really pretty and still available for purchase.

[](http://imgbox.com/qgOpCmRo)

Amazingly, the notable thing about them wasn't Dyr's voice- although it was just as fucking heartstopping then as it is now- but the fact that Skjaldi would pick up a different instrument to back her up with for sometimes literally every song in an entire concert. Seriously, unreal. I can't imagine how they carried all of them around for the summer, much less how she learned to play them all.

 

**4\. Gwinna**

Gwinna was utterly unknown at the start of the Planeshift Summer, but she developed a following really fast! At that point she was performing solo and most of her set was really intense rock settings of old folk songs. It was seriously cool. If you ever get the chance to listen to any of Gwinna's old repertoire, do it.

 

 

**5\. Lowen and Aleia**

Possibly the weirdest origin story of the label (although there's a lot of competition), Lowen and Aleia started out as a fairly popular wizard rock due called The Howlers. Their first album sounds like it was recorded in somebody's dorm room- probably because it was- but it's clever enough that it's still worth a listen. Best of all, it's available for free download on their [website](http://www.glowkraken.com)!

**[](http://imgbox.com/b7z3Zrcg)**

 

They got pretty popular after that, and kickstartered (kickstarted?) their way to a much more polished-sounding second album, which is good enough that they'll charge you money for it.

[](http://imgbox.com/f1todQ6A)

This album is presumably what caught Terra W.'s attention, though who even knows what she was doing scouting hobbyist wizard rock bands, seriously. Lowen and Aleia probably had the roughest start to the Planeshift Summer, as they were still working on figuring out what their non-filk music was going to be (a lot of electronica, as it turns out), but they were just so much fun to watch onstage that nobody really minded.

 

That's it for Heroes who were there for the beginning of the Planeshift Summer! There are a few names missing, as I'm sure you've noticed. Don't worry, they're coming! First of all, though, let me give you a little background about the tour and what I was doing there.

So in June 2012 I'd just graduated college and was lucky enough to have a job waiting for me in September, so I decided to pack a duffle, pick up the very old station wagon I'd learned to drive on back in high school, and spend my last summer of freedom following Empire around the country. They had a smallish fandom at that point, mostly epic pining Lyon/Tsadok fic, but I didn't know anyone else who was actually going on the tour, so I was by myself.

This isn't the place to get all nostalgic, but let me just say: the atmosphere of the Planeshift Summer was something extraordinary. As great a fandom touchstone as it was, the best thing about it remains all the time I spent not at concerts but pitching tents with other fans, staying up all night singing, scrounging for food and beer, skinny dipping in a river near a folk fest venue after none of us had showered for days. Cramming people into the station wagon and into crappy motel rooms along the road. The stars over the stage at the places that were just fields in the middle of nowhere, and screaming Empire lyrics with what felt like a million other people when they were in an actual venue. Those of us who were in it for the long haul picked each other out pretty quickly and started gravitating together over the course of the summer, until we had a weird kind of community where you might not know anyone's last name, but you could bum just about anything you needed off someone and you started greeting them like old friends whenever they rolled in.

I'm not just telling you this for nostalgia's sake, I promise. It's to give you context for when I say that one of the whole-summer groupies following the tour was a sixteen-year-old girl named Asmun.

True fact: I would die on a battlefield for Asmun. Anybody who doesn't like her can fucking fight me.

We weren't friends, exactly, but she was in that loose group of people wandering from venue to venue together, and we all sort of agreed to keep an eye on her. Sixteen isn't young to go to a concert, necessarily, but it's definitely young to be following a band around for an entire summer by yourself. She was friendly and sweet as anything, but she'd clam right up when you asked about her family or where she was from, and we all took that and the fact that she was trans and figured that there was probably some kind of situation going on with her home life, like maybe she'd been kicked out or run away. I like to think that we would have found some way to help her out at the end of the summer if that had ended up being true, but I'm definitely glad it turned out the way it did. Definitely wasn't expecting it, though.

Anyway, now you can keep in mind that Asmun was in the audience for this next bit, which is really the first fandom-notable event that happened during the Planeshift Summer.

 

**In Which Dyr Meets Tsadok**

 

It's not like people don't know about this, but it's one of the areas where it can be hard to sort fanon from canon, so here's the story of Dyr and Tsadok through the eyes of someone who was in the audience.

It's just about two weeks into the Summer, and we're at an outdoor festival in North Carolina. It's approximately a million degrees, which is maybe why a lot of the programming ends up being really late at night when everyone perks up a little. Not all the Heroes are there- they all actually had different schedules during the Summer and would split up and meet up a fair amount, which must have been a logistical nightmare for someone- but a good chunk were on the bill for the main concert, which ended with an Empire double encore that went until about 1:30 in the morning. After the concert it's advertised that there's going to be an open jam for the musicians which you can stay and watch, but they have some A/V issues and it doesn't actually get started until around 2, so the crowd's dwindled quite a bit.

The jam is _awesome._ The musicians are all clearly having a blast, fucking around and switching instruments and making increasingly weird covers of various songs. They do a couple of singalongs, too, and generally are just really engaged with what's left of the audience, who have all crowded right up to the stage because the amplification situation is still not really optimal. After a while, Tsadok turns to all of us and says that he wants to try out a new song he's been working on, if we'll all promise to turn our phones off because he's not supposed to be sharing it yet- which is why, tragically, there is no video footage of what happens next.

So Tsadok plays through the song with Jeris occasionally chiming in on bass when he can figure out what's going on- it's clearly still pretty rough, no lyrics yet but Tsadok is kind of da-da-da-ing through a very early version of _Skyrider_. After they finish it there's a smattering of applause and Dyr, who's sitting on the other side of the stage with Skjaldi, says she has an idea and asks him to play it again. This time she comes in with a harmony that she's apparently just made up on the spot, and holy shit, it's _electric._ I mean, you've heard them sing together, but that first time, goddamn.

My friends, never in my life have I seen anybody eyefuck like that.

Seriously.

The song sounded pretty good too! After they went through it again Jeris turned to us and asked if we minded if they workshopped it a bit, which of course everyone cheered for, so they ran through it some more with some of the other musicians joining in- Skjaldi decided that what it really needed was a cello, for reasons beyond my understanding- but you could tell that Dyr and Tsadok were just not paying attention to anything except each other. It was probably three in the morning by that point, and although they moved on from that song and kept going for a while both the crowd and the performers were starting to dwindle. You could tell that everybody was noticing the sheer weight of sexual tension going on between Dyr and Tsadok- it was hard to miss- and I think that had the effect of hurrying the last couple performers off the stage earlier than they otherwise might have gone. Dyr and Tsadok stayed by themselves for a while, trading covers of their back catalogs and basically looking an inch away from tearing each other's clothes off on stage. They never lost track of the fact that they were on stage, though. Sort of the opposite, in fact. I know I mentioned that the whole jam they were really engaged with the audience...well, that didn't change. It had gotten to the point that the whole thing just felt like a different world- to be fair, there were also a whole variety substances being passed around- but it was like four in the morning in this field in North Carolina with these two people we all just _loved_ in that insane, sincere fannish way basically playing exhibitionist musical foreplay chicken in front of us, and, well. It was kind of contagious.

I'm afraid I didn't actually see them make their eventual exit, but I can only assume that at some point they gave in and went to have really hot sex against a tree or something. When I looked up again it was just a couple of techies slowly disassembling the detritus of the concert.

(As a side note, if you're reading this and you were at that jam session and hooked up with a girl with a buzz cut and a blue sports bra, drop me a line, I kept an eye out but never found you again.)

 

**In Which Asmun Is Discovered And Elliwick Makes An Appearance**

 

Dyr started singing with Empire pretty soon after that, although not in any official sense. She and Skjaldi opened for them a bunch of times, and every once in a while Tsadok would invite her onstage during their set to sing for a song or two. The bulk of Empire fans who came to the big concert venues but didn't follow the whole tour around were a little dubious at first, but she won everyone over pretty quickly. I wonder how Skjaldi felt about it.

Anyway, the next notable thing happened at an Empire concert that Dyr was guesting at. It was an afternoon concert that was absolutely jam-packed and had a different kind of energy than usual, maybe because we weren't used to them playing during the day. We'd gone up to the front where they'd roped off an area for people who wanted to dance and were having a pretty awesome time when Tsadok called Dyr out on stage for the next number, I can't remember what it was but it wasn't one she'd sung on before, so there was a lot of really excited screaming when she appeared. Asmun shouted over it that she was going to try to fight her way to the bathroom, and of course it took like twenty minutes to fight her way out of the crowd and back in again, but right as she got back this woman swooped in like she'd been waiting and grabbed Asmun's arm. She had a badge and a radio and managed to look pretty no-nonsense despite being seriously tiny. She had to yell to be heard over the music, so we all heard her saying, "Asmun, right? Your sister wants to see you."

Asmun kind of drooped and nodded and went off with her, though she assured us she was fine when somebody stopped her to ask if everything was okay. She showed up again for a minute late that evening to pack up her tent, get her stuff, and scold us for worrying about her, and then she was just...gone. We mostly figured that she had run away and her family had tracked her down, which, y'know, turned out to be sort of true. Just not at all how we expected.

 

**In Which Zeth Enters The Scene**

 

 

I was not personally present for this one, but I heard the story from people who were, and luckily there is a [pretty decent video](youtube.com) available as well.

The Advent of Zeth happened at one of the smaller venues of the Planeshift Summer. It was at a women's music event that was part concert and part...sort of conference? Convention? One of those things. They had different panel-things where musicians would talk about their experiences in addition to playing some music, and Terra W. had gotten Aja onto one that was a panel of female singer-songwriters where they would all do a couple songs and then answer questions. She was the only one from the Planeshift Summer on that particular panel, although Gwinna had also detoured to the event- I don't remember what exactly she was doing there.

Anyway, there were three other women on the panel, but one of them had to cancel last-minute due to illness, so they presumably asked around for a replacement, as the whole place must have been full of lady singer-songwriters. They announced the performers one by one, so Aja went on stage first, then two others, and then they made the announcement about the cancellation and introduced their substitute, who was using the stage name Doc Copper. On comes this woman and Aja looks like she's about to faint (you can even tell on an iphone video, seriously, watch it). Presumably Zeth must have know that Aja was there, at the very least for a minute since she was announced, and she looks perfectly collected, walks on stage, gives Aja a little wave, and sits down to get on with the program.

Now, you might have missed this little exchange if you were in the audience that day and weren't paying close attention, but apparently at the end of the hour Zeth tried to make a quick escape and Aja pretty much chased her off the stage (this isn't on the video, sadly, so you'll have to imagine it), and that definitely got noticed. This was mid-July, so the Summer was well underway and Aja had plenty of dedicated fans. We were a little impeded by lack of internet, but some good sleuthing got done and eventually somebody unearthed this gem of a CD: 

 

[](http://imgbox.com/cmoE4832)

Zeth and Aja had apparently been partners about a decade before, produced the one CD, and then...nothing. Nobody knew what happened, and as far as I can tell we still don't actually know, though most fic posits breakup (and there's a healthy chunk of fanon that gives Zeth an addiction problem, though that's never been confirmed). People loved to speculate, though, especially when Zeth suddenly appeared on the Planeshift tour about two weeks later. She and Aja never performed together, but she did pull out a solo version of one of the songs off TATTOO at a concert in August. Aja was in the same lineup, so presumably she was there to listen backstage. Go forth and write fic about what the hell was going on there, I know I'd read it. (The song, for reference, is _[Identify Me](http://www.youtube.com)_.)

 

**In Which Elliwick Is A Badass**

 

You may recognize Elliwick from fic, where she occasionally shows up in the background of Empire as a general wrangler/provider of advice/general non-band character. She is a real person! I'm not entirely sure what her official job title is, but she seems to handle a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff for Empire. We don't really know much about her, but the awesome badass characterization she often gets pretty much comes from this one incident at the end of July, right around the time Zeth showed up. It was around 6:30, people starting to gather for the evening concert but mostly chatting or buying food, and suddenly there's a commotion on the stage, which turns out to be the tiny woman who took Asmun away _physically dragging_ this dude who is an actual foot taller than her up front. She grabs a mic and tells everybody to pay attention and get a good look at him, because he is being ejected from the festival and the tour and anybody who seems him again is to report him to security.

Oh, and it's this guy:

 

 

I told you the Planeshift Summer was fucking nuts, right? Word went around that he was spying for a competing label and Terra W. found out somehow, which, damn. Someone should write a spy AU. Or maybe an AU where Elliwick is secretly a ninja, can you believe she physically ejected Dusk from the festival? She cannot possibly be more than five feet tall.

 

 

**In Which Asmun Was Definitely Hiding Something**

 

The last truly major event of the Planeshift Summer was the Advent of Asmun. Early August and we're in an actual concert venue to see Lowen and Aleia who are opening for Empire, which Dyr is now basically a member of in all but name. It's full of people who haven't been following bands around the country for months, and it's possible we've gotten a little unhinged at this point, because they're giving us weird looks. Whatever, there's air conditioning and really nice bathrooms in this place. We're hatching a plan to hide away like that book where the kids live in the museum and just stay here when Terra W. herself comes onstage, causing quite a stir. She welcomes everybody and announces that unfortunately Lowen won't be able to perform at this concert, for undisclosed reasons.

(side note: this lines up with the beginning of Lowen's infamous legal battle with her mother. I am not doing any speculating on that, god knows she doesn't need any more of it.)

Instead, says Terra W., Aleia has a guest partner joining her who we're all sure to enjoy. Music definitely runs in the family, as she happens to be the younger sister of another great musician on the tour, Dyr! This gets a bit of a cheer- everybody loves Dyr, even if they are disappointed to miss Lowen- and then Aleia walks onstage with Asmun and all of us tour groupies just about die.

Things we didn't know about Asmun:

1\. Dyr's little sister

2\. Is a DJ

3\. Is a _fucking awesome_ DJ

She performed with Aleia for about two weeks before Lowen made it back, and by then it was obvious that she wasn't going away. She clicked super well with Aleia and even better with Lowen back too, and the three of them started headlining for a little while right at the end of the tour. There are enough interviews with Dyr and Asmun fondly sniping at each other to get the general idea of what happened, which is basically what you'd expect: Asmun wanted to perform, Dyr convinced their parents that she was too young, Asmun ran away to follow the tour, Dyr saw her on stage one day and sent Elliwick to go corral her, she hung around with the musicians for the rest of the tour (I bet they had a hell of an argument about whether she was going home, but honestly, props to Dyr for keeping her in sight, sixteen really is too young to be hitchiking between music festivals with complete strangers), she hit it off with Lowen and Aleia while kicking her heels backstage, and then when they needed someone to fill in...well. You get the impression Dyr isn't thrilled with Terra W. getting in on making her sister famous, but that's not the kind of thing you can actually say, so who knows.

 

Anyway, that brings me nicely to my conclusion!

 

**Where They Are Now:**

I assume you know most of this, but just briefly for the sake of contrast with the beginning of this story:

 

**1\. Empire**

Empirically (haha, see what I did there?) better now that Dyr is an official member. Dyr and Tsadok are engaged and adorable, though they don't seem to be in any rush to actually get married. Jeris and Emron continue to be their beautiful cinnamon roll selves, and Lyon...spends a lot of time pining after Tsadok in fic, I guess? Look, he's just kind of creepy in that weird drummer way, and fandom being fandom has a bad habit of being mean to Dyr in fic on his behalf and, you know, just focus on the couples. It'll be better that way. Or write the all-of-Empire-poly-and/or-orgy-fic, why doesn't that exist yet?

...Uh, sorry, got sidetracked. Look, they have an awesome new CD!

[](http://imgbox.com/PnOtTSb4)

 

**2\. Aja (and Zeth)**

The most recent news is that Aja is going on tour with Gwinna this spring! Sadly I can't ditch my job and go follow them around for months, but I'm definitely gonna see if I can get tickets to at least a show or two. Zeth has mostly been performing at small venues under the Doc Copper name, but even though they don't seem to be professionally collaborating at all the two of them have been seen together in public a bunch.

**3\. Skjaldi**

Since getting thrown over by Dyr (no, in all seriousness, they're still good friends and there doesn't seem to be any resentment there), Skjaldi's taken up with a new musical partner, a guy named Kyr that literally no one has ever heard of. We cannot figure out where the hell he came from. He showed up right after the tour ended, so maybe Terra W. in all her power summoned him to take up Dyr's slack? Who knows. Anyway, they're mostly doing instrumental stuff, and Skjaldi also shows up in the liner notes of just about every other Heroes label album, being her awesome multitalented self.

**4\. Gwinna**

Gwinna's career has taken off! Her repertoire has changed a lot since she started out. These days she's mostly working with one particular songwriter, you may remember him...yup, it's Dusk! Seriously weird, right? I have absolutely no good behind-the-scenes knowledge there, but I'm really damn curious how the guy went from being thrown out of the tour to writing hit songs for one of its stars. His material is really good, that's probably part of it. He wrote almost all of Gwinna's new album.

[ ](http://imgbox.com/06uDjdat)

 

 

 

**5\. Lowen and Aleia (and Asmun!)**

Our favorite party trio is now a sensation called, for unknown reasons, Glow Kraken (Asmun said it one interview that she was rooting for Glitter Squid, but got overruled, more's the pity). They haven't recorded anything, which makes sense as their shows are just as much about the spectacle as they are anything else. Not that their music isn't great! You really should go see them live if you can, though, it's an experience.

 

 

 

 And there you have it, hopefully everything you ever needed to know about the Planeshift Summer! Feel free to comment with any questions, I'm always happy to talk (or type) someone's ear off about this. :D

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm afraid I somehow lost my list of art credits for this. The howler is official HP concept art, but I don't remember who did the other drawings and I can't seem to find them again. Please alert me if you know!


End file.
